• 2018.05.10
• Present: Alex, Chris B., Chris O., Corey, Ryan
• Party:
  • 😈 Fisty, Tiefling Tome Pact Warlock
  • 🦆 Ducky, Gnome Wizard
  • 🛡 Tumutch, Human Vengence Paladin of the Silver Flame
  • 🛠 Dug, Dwarf Forge Cleric
  • ⚔️ Hiro Protagonist, Dragonborn Samurai

tl;dr: The gang rescues some captives of the gang. Hiro wields a strange sword which seems more in control of the situation than he does. They confront the leader of the gang and convince him to join their side.

1. A Spooky Crypt!
2. Prisoners
3. Dirty Work
4. Necromancy!
5. Tidying up

Pankas and Buldrick wander off toward a breezy tunnel on the other side of the crevasse. Maybe it leads outside? The rest of the gang waves goodbye to them as they recede from sight, singing a song and swinging a bear trap.

The remaining Reserve ventures forward around the corner and into a hall.

There are two doors. Dug approaches the one to the right and smashes it down.

Dug: 1
Doors: 0

Beyond the door lies a small crypt containing three large coffins, and a door in the back of the room. Distant, muffled weeping can be heard. As the gang approaches, the coffins stir and three spooky skeletons climb out, shreds of cracked leather armor clinging to their bodies, large swords clutched in their bony hands.

One of the skeletons has a throbbing purple light in the center of its chest and seems to exert control over the two remaining skeletons.

All three seem fixated on Fisty, who is wearing the red cloak of a fallen Brandon. Fisty, testing his apparent authority, orders the skeletons to stand down. The two normal skeletons lower their swords, and Purple Heart stands by not doing very much.

Almost everybody takes turns fussing over the skeletons:

• Fisty throws a bag full of water on Purple Heart, hoping to extinguish the purple light. What actually happens is that the skeleton gets wet.
• Ducky is amazed by the sight of the animated dead. She studies the magical energies and determines that there is definitely some necromancy going on here and that there is a touch of evocation magic emanating from Purple Heart.
• Tumutch studies the auras of the skellies. The two "normal" ones are kinda good. And Purple Heart vacillates between good and evil as the light in its chest pulses.
• Tumutch lights his special candle and shows it to Purple Heart in an attempt to bond over the fact that they both possess undying flames of some sort.

Ultimately, the skeletons do a whole lot of nothing while the gang stands and watches them do nothing.

Dug, noticing the door in the back of the room, and that the weeping is coming from behind it, strolls up and knocks on the door.

A sort of failed knock-knock joke routine follows, and Dug tries to pass himself off as one of the Brandons. "Um, you need anything?"

"Water. Ale."

"How many waters?"

"What? You know.."

And while that is or is not working, Thatso Raven the Rat squishes under the door and runs around making a little rodent distraction.

Ducky says "Now!" and Dug smashes into the door. The Brandon on the other side is braced up against it though and it doesn't work. On Dug's second charge, though, the door smashes open.

Dug: 2
Doors: 0

There are three guards in the room, and two prisoners--a woman and a small child--in a cage off to the side.

Tumutch and Dug storm the room pretty much instantly kill one of the guards.

Hiro draws Talon and as he does, the ornate hilt--the blade's namesake, carven to look like the twin talons of a great black hawk--squirms to life. The now quite real talons twist and writhe in Hiro's grasp, and in turn grasp him right back. Each individual claw twists and digs deep into the flesh of his hand until Hiro is no longer grasping the sword, but the sword is grasping him.

A pressure and a hungry voice crowd into his head, and he hears, "Blooooooood".

Hiro is understandably super distracted by this development and swings at the air instead of at the Redbrand in front of him.

Fisty does some blasty blasts. Ducky thinks about tolling some bells but is too distracted and awestruck by the animated dead in the crypt behind her.

Tumutch steps forward and seizes one of the guards right by the throat, rendering him immobile. Ducky, emboldened by some kind of gnomish battle rage, steps up to the grappled guard and pummels him twice in the face with her tiny fists, doing a total of zero damage.

The guard is bewildered and flustered. He and the remaining guard immediately surrender beneath Ducky's withering glare.

Some quick interrogation happens.

• Their leader is somewhere in the cave and his name is Glass Staff.

• They're scared of the skeletons but don't know much about them.

• There's big hairy things in the cave that they also don't like. (Bugbears?)

• Dug tries to tear the cloak off of the guard while he was still wearing it and also still grappled by Tumutch. This proved ineffective.

The gang frees the prisoners and locks the guards in the cage. The woman is Myrna Dendrar and her child is Nars. They are a merchant family, and the Redbrand captured them all and then killed her husband (Mister Dendrar?) allegedly because he was planning with Costco to overthrow the Redbrand and drive them out.

Myrna tells them of her family home in Thunder Tree and of a special amulet she had hidden there. Sidequest!

The team backs up out of the prison room back into the crypt.

Tumutch nervously brandished his polearm, and Purple Heart picks up his coffin lid and holds it in front of him like a shield. The group continues on its way.

Presumably half mad with the trauma of the blade Talon fusing with his flesh, and with the sword's apparent bloodlust, Hiro turns on Myrna Dendrar, slicing her palm open with the blade Talon. This has no noticeable effect. On Talon or on Hiro that is. It has a very noticeable effect on Myrna. Namely that she is bleeding heavily from her hand and is terrified of the large dragonborn and probably of his friends too. Young Nars pummels him with his fists, trying to protect his mother, but Hiro has already withdrawn.

Dug bandages up Myrna's hand as best as he is able while giving Hiro a bewildered look.

Ducky studies the magic emanating from the sword and tells Hiro they may be able to further determine the nature of the sword if they can find an arcane library, perhaps at a wizarding college.

Hiro nods and leaves the caves, not to be seen again.

Ducky and Fisty leave to perform some dirty work.

They head back trough into the crypt into the prison. Ducky, fulfilling her obligation to Buldrick, attempts to retrieve a face from the fallen guard at the back of the room, but is not successful.

Fisty, shooting fish in a barrel, blasts the two imprisoned guards to death, visibly gaining vigor and health with each kill.

They look at each other, agree not to speak of any of this, and leave to rejoin the group.

Tumutch stops Ducky and is very concerned. "I heard screaming, and .. Fisty looks kind of ... unnatural. What were you doing in there?" Ducky shakes her head no, shushes him and gently touches her hand to his face before turning and walking away without saying a word. Sweet Tumutch. Sweet, innocent, summer child Tumutch.

When they arrive, Ducky rebandages Myrna's hand to stop the bleeding more effectively.

Fisty and Dug lead the Dendrars back toward the entrance of the lair, only to find the trapdoor locked and obstructed from the outside. Dug hammers at it a few times, but it is thoroughly barricaded from above.

Dug: 2
Doors: 1

So they head back to the breezy entrance that Pankas, Buldrick, and now Hiro have exited through. The Dendrars take their leave.

Meanwhile, Dug and the rest of the gang are addressing the second door in the hallway before the crypt. ("Hello, door!")

Dug starts hammering away with his hammer, and then bursts through to the other side like the Kool Aid man.

Dug: 3
Doors: 1

They find themselves in a small armory and snatch up a whole bunch of loot.

The gang continues to explore the expanse of the caverns, now approaching the far side of the chasm. They see a stairway leading down into the dark.

Thatso scampers ahead and is startled and excited to see another rat! The strange rat is startled to see Thatso and runs away. Thatso runs after the rat, anxious to make a friend.

They run through what looks like a wizard's laboratory and through another doorway just as that door swings shut. Thatso sees a shadowy figure escape out the back of that room, out yet another door, and the figure retreats toward the cave entrance through which the gang originally entered.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang--except for Ducky, who is in a trance while sharing Thatso's senses--is pilfering through the wizard's laboratory. They find among the items a journal belonging to a servant of Lhander, god of dawn and of the riding sun. It goes on to describe a holy weapon, the Light Bringer, that was forged in the Special Forge of Magic Spells as part of the Pact of Phandelver, but which is now lost, presumably somewhere in Rave Echo Cave.

Anyway, Ducky snaps awake and rushes into the lab (What is all of this glorious stuff?) and tells everybody about the shadowy figure retreating toward the front of the caves.

They give chase!

The group finds the cloaked figure trying to lift and escape through the blocked trapdoor. They call out to him "Glass Staff! Let's talk?"

Glass Staff though is like, "Aren't you guys are killing all of the Redbrand? You BURNED a bunch of them in town?" and he draws his staff defensively.

Ducky calls up to him, "Hey! How did you do all that stuff back there with the skeletons?" and he's like, "Um. Necromancy?"

Tumutch snaps. He hurls a spear straight toward the wizard while squealing, "Necromanceeeeeeeeee!" The spear plunges deep into the wizard's shoulder, and then it's on.

He downs an invisibility potion and vanishes. The group fans out to cover all the exits to the room and starts advancing toward the middle of the room.

Fisty blasts toward the center of the empty space but manages to hit nothing but a bunch of empty space.

Glass Staff blasts the door behind Tumutch, which happens to be the door to the barracks, which happen to still be very much on fire. The backdraft blasts Tumutch and sends him flying. He lands prone.

Visible again, Glass Staff is targeted and attacked by Fisty and Dug.

Glass Staff renders Tumutch entirely immobile and speechless with some spell.

Ducky is aghast at the thought of Glass Staff dying before she can learn all she can from him. She attempts to immediately stop combat by magically disguising herself as Glass Staff and running up to him and confusing the rest of the team by forcing them to play a bit of the old Spot The Imposter. "No, I'm the real Glass Staff!"

Whether this is super effective or merely super confusing is not known, but the group does, improbably, manage to talk themselves down, stop combat, gently release Tumutch from the holding spell, and ultimately all join together as one team.

• Glass Staff is actually Yarno Albreck, presumed dead, formerly of the Lord's Alliance, originally tasked with setting up a civil police service to protect Phanelin. Instead, he realized and seized the opportunity to gain control of the Redbrand himself.

• Sildar was sent to capture/kill/stop him?

• His boss is the Black Spider, a super scary dude who has already found the Rave Echo Cave.

• He doesn't know where the cave is, but one of the Hobgoblins in the back of the cave might.

• Ducky is enamored with Yarno and idolizes him and wants to learn everything.

The team regroups. Back in the laboratory, Yarno brews up a health potion, which he downs because we did beat him up pretty bad, and fetches his skeletons. They all head to the back of the cave.

Yarno, Ducky, and Fisty enter an antechamber where four Brandons are playing cards. (Ducky and Fisty disguised as a Redbrands, and Yarno is Yarno.) Ducky creates an illusion of a card falling out of a player's sleeve, and the gamblers start brawling with each other. But then Yarno orders them out to extinguish the fire in the barracks. They leave, granting full access to room beyond.

In the room beyond, a bunch of bugbears, hobgoblins, and goblins are hanging out. Yarno sends in the skeletons, which go in swinging.

One of the goblins faints immediately. The goblinoids rough up the skeletons pretty good, and Purple Heart ultimately takes a heavy blow to the chest, shattering the lantern, which explodes violently, knocking one of the bugbears prone and injuring a bunch of bystanders.

Once the gang stops bunching up in the doorway, they make quick work of the remaining monsters. (Ducky kills a bugbear with her phantom bell!)

Tumutch grapples the remaining hobgoblin and drags him out of the room.

This closes #4?

The end?

Hello my constituents,

I can't help feel that we have strayed from our path. We have been failing to loot felled Brandons and as a result, the recent income we've been enjoying has come to a complete stop. We all share the blame in this but I believe we can, with dedication, correct our course. Moving forward, we must renew and prioritize our focus on growing our wealth at ever opportunity.

We did come across some good news in regards a prized Dendar family heirloom that remains hidden in a nearby town named Thunder Tree. From the description, it sounds like it could be worth a pretty penny. I suggest we follow up on this.

With guidance,

Dug Hammerhound

Second notice: Any previous party funds held by individuals are to be turned over to the treasury as soon as possible.

Treasury totals are as follows:

• 285 Gold
• 15 Electrum
• 316 Silver
• 2 Garnets
• 3 Malachite

Oh my goodness, I could not be more excited!

So we were looking for this guy called Glass Staff who we thought was the leader of the Brandons, and well he is, but he's also this totally awesome wizard named Yarno. He knows how to brew health potions and he knows invisibility but most importantly, he was able to command the skeletons we found!

I don't know if he was able to raise them himself, or if he simply found a way to control them. I hope the former! And I hope he will agree to teach me! I suddenly feel much closer to achieving my goal. I feel very encouraged!

If he doesn't have the knowledge to raise the dead, I'll be so disappointed. But at least there is so much more for me to learn from him either way.

I can't let him get away or let anything happen to him before I learn all I can from him!

In other news, I tried to retrieve a face for Buldrick and ended up making a mess of things which really surprised me. Either I'm out of practice and my surgical skills are getting rusty, or I was fatigued from battle. Or both. Oh well. Zero down, three to go.

Oh, note to self: keep an eye on Tumutch. Dear, sweet Tumutch. He was acting kind of suspicious after Fisty and I were done tending to the remaining Brandons. (sidenote: Fisty drew life energy from the Brandons he killed. Interesting.) And seeing how he speared the crap out of Yarno, he is super not down with channeling life energies! Poor thing. He's under a lot of stress.

I either need to keep him far away from my studies, or bring him all the way into my confidence and show him how noble and important my work is.